Economy & Inflation
What I Believe
The economy must work for working people, not just corporations.
The Problem: Corporate Price-Gouging and Cost-of-Living Crisis
Inflation outpaces wages, leaving working families struggling to afford basic necessities like housing, groceries, and childcare. This crisis is fueled by excessive corporate consolidation (monopolies) that reduces competition, allowing a few large companies to dictate prices and drive up costs for everyone else, transferring wealth from consumers to shareholders.
What I'll Do - The Fair Price and Competition Act - FPCA
- Break Monopolies and Strengthen Antitrust: Dramatically strengthen and resource the Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Prioritize and aggressively enforce antitrust laws in key sectors—including technology, agriculture, and pharmaceuticals—to break up monopolies and restore competition, which will directly force prices down.
- Supply-Side Housing Investment: Launch a federal program to incentivize and fast-track the development of affordable, high-density housing near urban centers and transportation hubs. Offer federal block grants to states and localities that commit to streamlining zoning regulations and permitting processes to increase the total supply of housing quickly.
- Small Business and Wage Growth Incentives: Establish a targeted, multi-year payroll tax holiday or tax credit specifically for small- and mid-sized businesses (SMEs) that commit to raising their lowest-paid workers’ wages by a minimum percentage above the rate of inflation. This promotes organic, non-inflationary wage growth from the middle of the economy outward.
- Targeted Family Cost Reduction: Implement policies designed to directly reduce household expenses, including expanding the Child Tax Credit (CTC) to cover the majority of childcare costs and capping certain essential fees (like credit card late fees and banking overdraft fees) to put money back into working families’ pockets.
Why It Matters
The current economy is rigged to transfer wealth from working families to corporate monopolies through artificially inflated prices. By aggressively breaking up monopolies and investing directly in housing and worker wages, we will restore competition and ensure that the value generated in America stays in the hands of the people who earned it.